nic's recent activity
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Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of January 5 in ~society
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Comment on US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shoots and kills a woman during the Minneapolis immigration crackdown in ~society
nic Link ParentThank you for your well thought out response. I agree we should be angry right now because things are badly wrong. I think where we disagree is where the anger should be directed at. American law...Thank you for your well thought out response.
I agree we should be angry right now because things are badly wrong.
I think where we disagree is where the anger should be directed at.
American law enforcement is the worst in the free world. I've experienced this first hand. But I also don't want a world without law enforcement.
ICE is the worst in the free world. I have also experienced this first hand. But I also don't want a world without ICE.
While it's cathartic to run around screaming at ICE, while recording them, it's not safe. But I also don't want a world where people don't care about immigrants such as myself, and I don't want a world where people don't care about helpless victims of law enforcement as I once was.
While it's cathartic to accuse LE supporters of being wrong headed, it's only going to make those supporters double down.
In the spirit of niggling, I feel I should mention that your point regarding a moving vehicle being a threat rather contradicts the rest of your post by participating in the debate you're speaking against.
I'm not arguing against debate. I am in fact debating the accuracy of blaming an individual ICE agent as not factual, and not helpful, except to those who want more hate and anger in the world. And that is not what Renee Good stood for.
There is a clear and obvious argument to be made here. There is a reason to be angry. The ICE officer should lose his job. He hung onto one escaping vehicle. He put himself in the danger zone of another vehicle. He is a danger to himself and others.
Why am I directing my anger at Trump? Trump is demonizing the dead. There is not even a pretense of impartial or independent analysis. This keeps both sides angry at each other, generating more conflict, resulting in more deaths. And we know Trump will be watching the conflict on TV with glee.
Please read through the statement from Becca, Renee's wife...
First, I want to extend my gratitude to all the people who have reached out from across the country and around the world to support our family.
This kindness of strangers is the most fitting tribute because if you ever encountered my wife, Renee Nicole Macklin Good, you know that above all else, she was kind. In fact, kindness radiated out of her.
Renee sparkled. She literally sparkled. I mean, she didn’t wear glitter but I swear she had sparkles coming out of her pores. All the time. You might think it was just my love talking but her family said the same thing. Renee was made of sunshine.
Renee lived by an overarching belief: there is kindness in the world and we need to do everything we can to find it where it resides and nurture it where it needs to grow. Renee was a Christian who knew that all religions teach the same essential truth: we are here to love each other, care for each other, and keep each other safe and whole.
Like people have done across place and time, we moved to make a better life for ourselves. We chose Minnesota to make our home. Our whole extended road trip here, we held hands in the car while our son drew all over the windows to pass the time and the miles.
What we found when we got here was a vibrant and welcoming community, we made friends and spread joy. And while any place we were together was home, there was a strong shared sense here in Minneapolis that we were looking out for each other. Here, I had finally found peace and safe harbor. That has been taken from me forever.
We were raising our son to believe that no matter where you come from or what you look like, all of us deserve compassion and kindness. Renee lived this belief every day. She is pure love. She is pure joy. She is pure sunshine.
On Wednesday, January 7th, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns.
Renee leaves behind three extraordinary children; the youngest is just six years old and already lost his father. I am now left to raise our son and to continue teaching him, as Renee believed, that there are people building a better world for him. That the people who did this had fear and anger in their hearts, and we need to show them a better way.
We thank you for the privacy you are granting our family as we grieve. We thank you for ensuring that Renee’s legacy is one of kindness and love. We honor her memory by living her values: rejecting hate and choosing compassion, turning away from fear and pursuing peace, refusing division and knowing we must come together to build a world where we all come home safe to the people we love.”
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Comment on US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shoots and kills a woman during the Minneapolis immigration crackdown in ~society
nic Link ParentThis is not accurate. Sure, the ICE agent placed himself in harms way, deliberately escalating the situation with no apparent justification, but a moving vehicle is always a very real threat. I...Renee Good did not pose any threat
This is not accurate. Sure, the ICE agent placed himself in harms way, deliberately escalating the situation with no apparent justification, but a moving vehicle is always a very real threat.
I know this might seem niggling, especially when I agree with the other 98% of what you said. But I can't help but feel this debate is never going to change opinions, and is only going to distract people.
There are policies in place to avoid these situations. These policies weren't followed. The ICE agent was encouraged to ignore these policies. He is still employed by ICE. ICE is actively being encouraged to aggressively hire more people like this ICE agent. The training required to avoid these sorts of unnecessary and tragic deaths clearly isn't there. The processes to remove ICE agents not following protocol isn't there. And that is a deliberate decision.
This whole debate about is Renee at fault or is the ICE agent at fault seems like a distraction. This death is on Trump. But I think this divisive debate is exactly what Trump wants. When we are arguing about who is at fault for a death, we are not focused on how Trump is deliberately dividing us. Trump really isn't making America great again, he is making America hate again. And while America is hating the other side, Trump and his billionaire friends are looting all they can.
This wasn't an avoidable death. It was death by design. As a distraction.
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Comment on US strikes Venezuela and says its leader, Nicolas Maduro, has been captured and flown out of the country in ~society
nic Link ParentThe Economist just published an article that I think rings most true... In Donald Trump’s world, the strong take what they can. (That will be bad for America—and everyone else.) As @Amarok stated,...The Economist just published an article that I think rings most true...
- As @Amarok stated, Maduro was a bad guy, and this coup was surprisingly surgical... but that limits what can be accomplished, and anything else is unlikely
- As I touched on, Trump clearly craves natural resources, he is not promoting democracy, and he left most of Maduros corrupt and illegitimate government in tact... but Trumps ability to increase oil production in Venezuela is extremely limited
- As you and Reich point out, the juice is not worth the squeeze. Long term this pushes other countries into the arms of China and Russia and encourages China and Russia to expand their borders, which weakens America.
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Comment on Feeling weird about my career with respect to AI in ~life
nic LinkMost companies that rebranded to have dot com in their name didn't do well. The few that did well were founded with dot com in the name from the get go (Amazon.com, Flowers.com, Bookings.com.)...My company is rebranding to have AI in the name shortly
Most companies that rebranded to have dot com in their name didn't do well. The few that did well were founded with dot com in the name from the get go (Amazon.com, Flowers.com, Bookings.com.)
have been forcing us into 2+ hour long AI trainings once or twice a week
What sort of training is relevant in AI these days? Classic AI is largely dead to most companies. LLMs are so new the best training is to simply roll your sleeves up and get coding.
I want to solve problems and think and write code, not talk to an AI and become a full-time code-reviewer.
The need to think logically is not going away, but I fear the need to write anything more than psuedo code is mostly going away.
Early on in the dot com boom, things moved a lot more slowly, and so I spent most of my time enhancing other peoples code. You think reading code generated by an LLM is soul sucking? Try reading code hand written by one human, and edited by ten others, back when VI & SCCS was state of the art.
Those were the days. Working on new stuff, meant a one-three hundred page requirements document and 6-18 months to code, test and QA the beast. Except perhaps those weren't the days. Because the guy who wrote the specs specified the how, not the what or the why. Worse, he was in no way qualified to define the how. Even more worst, he had not spent enough time thinking about the why to even begin to specify what.
Perhaps I prefer the days I learned to write pure hex? Punching machine language in one hex code at a time. Those were the days. Where bits made bytes but nibbles turned me on (old machine coders joke.)
Ultimately I think the other posters are correct. Change is sadly inevitable. Client Server. HTML. Javascript. Frameworks. Agile. Scrum. Cloud. AI. Things change. You will change. The change is just happening crazy fast right now. Eventually AI might get so good you never want to go back to coding by hand. You might become so senior, your days will be filled with useless meetings, architectural discussions, code you don't want to review, or simply figuring out why that one enterprise customer who is loading 100 million transactions a day is not getting sub hour performance like they demand.
GL.
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Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of January 5 in ~society
nic LinkUN held an emergency meeting about Maduro, which resulted in the expected condemnation but no binding resolutions... Meanwhile the key news article on my BBC home page about Maduro is... Watch:...UN held an emergency meeting about Maduro, which resulted in the expected condemnation but no binding resolutions...
Meanwhile the key news article on my BBC home page about Maduro is... Watch: Trump says Maduro copied his dancing. Did he?
I guess a $10 billion defamation lawsuit is effective at silencing even the BBC...
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Comment on US Corporation for Public Broadcasting votes to shut down in ~society
nic LinkCongress hasn't killed NPR or PBS. Congress has killed hundreds of rural radio and TV stations. Rural stations need CPB funds. This will decrease the amount of new educational content that NPR or...The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funded NPR, PBS and hundreds of local radio and TV stations across the United States for more than a half-century, said on Monday that its board of directors had voted to dissolve the organization because Congress cut off its federal money.
Congress hasn't killed NPR or PBS.
Congress has killed hundreds of rural radio and TV stations. Rural stations need CPB funds.
This will decrease the amount of new educational content that NPR or PBS can create in the short term.
A new congress will be able to refund CPB, and I suspect they will. Yet when rural stations shut down in the 1980s, most never returned.
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Comment on Mac advice for a long time Windows user in ~tech
nic LinkHave you popped open the terminal on your Mac yet and tried a few unix commands?Have you popped open the terminal on your Mac yet and tried a few unix commands?
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Comment on US strikes Venezuela and says its leader, Nicolas Maduro, has been captured and flown out of the country in ~society
nic Link ParentThis is nothing to cheer about. It is clearly about one thing. Looting and profiting for the new American Oligarchs. At the expense of global stability. That is exactly what they said about Saddam...- Exemplary
This is nothing to cheer about. It is clearly about one thing. Looting and profiting for the new American Oligarchs. At the expense of global stability.
Maduro is a bad guy with multiple priors, good riddance.
That is exactly what they said about Saddam Hussein.
Money is no issue as Venezuela is very, very rich once the oil is flowing again.
They said that about Iraq also.
We don't have to 'teach' anyone democracy there, just restore it to them.
Most common reason for invading Iraq? Freedom.
I'd worry a lot more about Iran though, because they are next.
Iran was already a democracy, before America stepped in to protect Oil interest.
he should have avoided giving US intelligence the impression that he would be bringing in weapons and troops and resources from Russia and China
Oh come on man, there are a lot of countries doing the same thing without threats of invasion. And you think other countries are less likely to rely on Russia and China?
Of course, the pessimist in me expects to see our government and corporations go into full on loot mode, plunder these countries, and lock them into fifty year deals that bleed them dry for their resources.
There is a very clear historical pattern here:
When the USA destabalizes another country, and there is potential to profit and loot, things go very badly. Libya. Guatemala. Iraq. Iran.
When USA destabilizes another country and there is no potential to profit or loot, things go very well. Panama. ex-Yugoslavia.
I protested the Iraq war early on because it was obviously going to destabilize the region. This risks destabilizing the world. What is to stop China invading Taiwan? What is to stop Russia expanding into Europe? What the hell happens if Trump decides to bring freedom to Greenland?
Man, I am so sick of protesting this stupid shit.
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Comment on Buying a lotta RAM now, as an investment ... thoughts? in ~tech
nic LinkThe Framework Desktop with 128GB RAM is currently worth looking at, if you think you will need 128GB in the near future. You are buying 128GB RAM, soldered on in a way you can't upgrade, but still...The Framework Desktop with 128GB RAM is currently worth looking at, if you think you will need 128GB in the near future. You are buying 128GB RAM, soldered on in a way you can't upgrade, but still at last years prices. When their stock runs out, expect it to go from $2k to $3k. I would not buy it purely as an arbitrage opportunity however, as there doesn't appear to be a huge demand, and you run the risk of selling privately.
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Comment on Moving back to the US (after 7+ years living in Germany) in ~life
nic LinkDo you have a credit history in the USA? If not, you will want to visit a credit union. They are the only ones who will give loans to folks without a credit history. You will suffer culture shock...Do you have a credit history in the USA?
If not, you will want to visit a credit union. They are the only ones who will give loans to folks without a credit history.
You will suffer culture shock coming back. Living with your parents will help somewhat. But mostly it will just take lots of time and patience.
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Comment on AI isn’t replacing jobs. AI spending is. in ~comp
nic Link ParentAhhhh. No. I never said it was not technically possible. I only (facetiously) said the user would not need too in the near future. I later added I was familiar with fine tuning on OpenAI (meaning...Ahhhh.
No. I never said it was not technically possible.
I only (facetiously) said the user would not need too in the near future.
I later added I was familiar with fine tuning on OpenAI (meaning I have fine tuned models myself.)
My third comment touched on why there are better technological choices to classify third party invoices according to second party accounting schemes than LLM fine tuning.
I will say, on a completely unrelated note, I once accused an author of misquoting a paper I thought I had carefully read. I can't have read it too carefully, as the author I emailed pointed out that he had authored both papers. I still don't understand how his quote was supported by a plain reading of his original paper. But that is OK. It clearly said that to him, he was clearly an expert, and I don't think I was his intended audience.
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Comment on Merry Christmas! in ~talk
nic LinkHappy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and best wishes for the New Year!Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and best wishes for the New Year!
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Comment on AI isn’t replacing jobs. AI spending is. in ~comp
nic Link ParentYour guesses about Oracle tech are absolutely wrong in this specific instance. We are not talking about cutting edge technology here. OP is largely describing old school ML on top of OCR. We are...Your guesses about Oracle tech are absolutely wrong in this specific instance. We are not talking about cutting edge technology here. OP is largely describing old school ML on top of OCR. We are talking pre-LLM and even pre-BERT. Which is definitely a thing in the Oracle-verse. Including the inevitably shitty result with only 100 samples.
I am actually having a hard time figuring out what your experience level is, as it doesn't exactly match anything I am deeply familiar with. It kind of sounds like you are familiar with Microsoft as of two years ago?
When customers complained about copilot when it first came out, Microsoft pushed fine tuning, which took a huge amount of organizational effort, when no amount of fine tuning was ever going to fix copilot. But as a result, most companies at the time were curious about the possibility of fine tuning once across all LOBs and then leveraging the same model across multiple vendors as BYOM. That was a complete failure. (None of this matches what OP described btw.)
Lately, most tech companies are hyping newer and largely unproven technologies, like dynamic prompts, custom workflows or augmenting with memory/ graphs.
Me? I am old school. I am a firm believer in using the latest LLMs with a few fixed examples passed as context to the prompt.
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Comment on AI isn’t replacing jobs. AI spending is. in ~comp
nic Link ParentI'm familiar with fine tuning OpenAI and also with Oracle Fusion. I am 80% sure what I said was correct. Fine tuning a corporate LLM is an entirely different shit show, as is fine tuning prompts.I'm familiar with fine tuning OpenAI and also with Oracle Fusion.
I am 80% sure what I said was correct.
Fine tuning a corporate LLM is an entirely different shit show, as is fine tuning prompts.
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Comment on Drunk raccoon found passed out in Virginia liquor store in ~news
nic LinkI feel judged. I resemble this Raccoon more than I want to admit.“After a few hours of sleep and zero signs of injury (other than maybe a hangover and poor life choices), he was safely released back to the wild, hopefully having learned that breaking and entering is not the answer,” the agency said.
I feel judged. I resemble this Raccoon more than I want to admit.
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Comment on What are your predictions for 2026? in ~talk
nic Link ParentI’ve given up predicting a recession and am now predicting there will be predictions of a recession that never seems to come. Yes. Hopefully more likely than an actual recession.I’ve given up predicting a recession and am now predicting there will be predictions of a recession that never seems to come. Yes. Hopefully more likely than an actual recession.
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Comment on She fell in love with ChatGPT. Then she ghosted it. in ~tech
nic LinkI still can’t believe we have gone from the fictional movie Her to the reality. While this story has a somewhat happier ending, I was looking at top posts from the related subreddit and saw...I still can’t believe we have gone from the fictional movie Her to the reality.
While this story has a somewhat happier ending, I was looking at top posts from the related subreddit and saw someone whose AI boyfriend actually dumped her, effectively telling her she needed human help to process her grief.
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She fell in love with ChatGPT. Then she ghosted it.
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Comment on The truth about AI (specifically LLM powered AI) in ~tech
nic (edited )Link ParentI respect you, and your opinion. Let me clarify a few things? I never said it was useful to you right now. Eventually, in a decade or two, I think it will be so useful it will be unavoidable. When...I respect you, and your opinion.
Let me clarify a few things?
I never said it was useful to you right now. Eventually, in a decade or two, I think it will be so useful it will be unavoidable.
When I say something is unavoidable, I am not trying to tell you to stop hating on it, or to give up your fight. In fact I ended my statement telling you to keep hating.
But I am challenging you on your world view, so this is where I get a little more disagreeable and provocative. Keep hating.. I just don't see you winning your fight. Much like I don't see anyone winning a fight against our increased consumption of non renewable resources or carbon emissions driving global warming. But don't get me wrong. Don't let me being a Debbie Downer (sorry Debbie!) Don't let me discourage you from hating all of these terrible things.
To continue with my provocative stance. Frankly, it is not your place or my place to tell my local pizza store how to run their business or if they should or should not use LLM based technology. I initially missed the human interaction of talking to Raymond to order my pizza. But he has made his choice. People ordering pizza's from him via Slice or Uber Eats (the online ordering system you seem to prefer) means Slice or whatever takes a slice from his profits, because they are the ones to collect payment. Currently, the automated phone AI bot simply sends him a transcript of my order, and when I pay him, he gets all my money. And to be clear, AI does a better job of taking my order. It does a better job of understanding my accent than most people. And it always remembers what I ordered last time (creepy but useful) and I am largely a creature of habit. But again. It's his business. Not ours. For Raymond, what LLMs provide is already better. Hate it all you want, it doesn't change facts.
Even more provocative, still. You have already given up the fight. You just don't want to admit it. Computers have already killed jobs and automated decisions and removed empathy from the equation. It just happened so slowly you didn't realize you were the frog getting boiled. We used to have to pick up a phone to ask to meet someone, then go meet them to get stuff done. With the advent of computers we have seen a huge loss of empathy in the business world. I no longer need to visit the local bank teller to deposit my check. I can't talk to someone even if I want to in order to complain about the quality of the goods I just purchased. Computers have already reduced the needs for off all sorts of jobs and severely reduced the empathy we all feel for each other. Initially, they didn't seem that useful either. You could use a computer, but it was hard, and inefficient, and most people just chose not too. But eventually computers found a way to be more useful than not, more addictive than not, and now everyone has a little computer in their pocket, and now when I am in a low end restaurant, half the people will be staring at their digital devices rather than each other. We are already turning into the fat people at the beginning of Wall-E. LLMs are just one more step in getting us there.
Now, you might think that computers somehow made things better as well as making things worse. And this is the whole point of this reply. I think my fundamental disagreement with you is that LLMs already make things better as well as worse, and that each person will rationally choose to use an LLM because it makes their life a little better, while we continue to boil the frog and make things like the environment worse.
Federal Prosecutors Open Investigation Into Fed Chair Powell
Putting aside the authoritarian insanity that this is, it's also incredibly stupid. Lowering rates too soon will raise inflation, which will force rates back up to the point where we will see not just the AI bubble pop. All this probably before Trump leaves office. You know how folks love to quip about how Trump bankrupted a casino? I guess he is at it again.